8/09/2012

The Real Reason Mitt Romney Is Losing and Will Lose:
If he were a better man, Mitt Romney would have one of those dark mornings of the soul. He would wake up after a bender on virgin appletinis (known as "apple juice in a fancy glass" to the rest of us), unshaven, viciously moussed hair disheveled, and stagger into the bathroom in only his magic underwear. He'd tiredly root around for his penis and take a sputtering leak, as befits a man of his years. Then he'd look in the mirror, trying to remember what he did the previous night. He'd think about all the conflicting promises he made to donors, all the people he pretended to like. As he stared deeper into his bloodshot, sinking eyes, no longer assisted by copious amounts of highlighter, he might think about the past, think about how he made his money, how he spent it, how he didn't care about all the people who fell by the wayside in his march to demonstrate that he was the king of profiting from the ruins of others, a fancy junkyard salesman who occasionally repurposed the heaps of metal into a working mousetrap, but was just as likely to merely polish the garbage and sell it. Yes, if Mitt Romney were another kind of man, an honestly self-reflective man, he might stare in the mirror, think about why most predictions were that he would lose the election that he had spent over half a decade running for, ponder the situation he found himself in, question his very existence, and conclude, "I am really a dick."

As people begin to write pre-mortem postmortems of Mitt Romney's campaign, you're going to see many question why and how, how in the world, indeed, could a candidate of Romney's vintage be losing. There will be conservatives who are smug about Romney having never been a true crazy right-winger. There will be conservatives who try to throw him a life preserver, like bald demon Reihad Salam at CNN, whose "Why Mitt Romney Is Losing" editorial is full of floaties. For instance, Salam posits a fantasy Romney, one who actually comes up with plans to, say, regulate banks once the weak Dodd-Frank bill is burned by some fantasy Congress. On the left, Charles Blow in the New York Timessays of the one-term governor's strategy of just plain, fucking lying about what Barack Obama is doing, "Romney has to find a line of attack that works because there is a creeping feeling beginning to overtake part of the electorate that his candidacy is in trouble. The problem is that these sorts of desperate, baseless attacks only amplify the sense of panic."

But there's one overriding reason that Romney's candidacy was doomed: he is a completely unlikeable prick. And, unlike the fake self-aware Romney above, he doesn't give a shit that he's an unlikeable prick. In the world he existed in before running for president, one can be admired for dealing with others as an unfeeling asshole. That might be how cutthroat investment schemers work, but Romney is fast learning that people are not corporations. We give a damn who we're dealing with and who's fucking us over, and anyone who isn't so deluded by swallowing the Rush Limbaugh chowder on Obama or just being plain racist can see that Mitt Romney is not only not someone you'd want to have a beer with, but he's someone who, given the right circumstances and the right bar, you'd want to punch in the nose for being such a self-righteous cock.

Now, how do you, if you are Mitt Romney, overcome that? Well, short answer is "You don't."

The long answer is that you need to have something that mitigates your innate dickishness. A compelling back story? Um, "privileged son of a politician who bullied his classmates at prep school and who, while Americans his age were bleeding out on rice paddies in Vietnam, spent over two years living in a lovely mansion in France and trying to cajole Parisians into becoming Mormons" doesn't work.

You could have a demonstrated record of doing something other than making money for rich people. Sure, you could push the Olympics experience, but that just makes you look like an asshole for placing yourself above the athletes. A better man, which you are not, could say that providing health insurance for most everyone in Massachusetts is a pretty awesome accomplishment, but your weaselly refusal to say it's a generally good thing just reconfirms that you are a craven, power hungry dickhead.

You could offer a real reason why you want to be president. But other than "That Obama sure sucks," you have offered no reason other than an inferred "Boy, I'd make a great president, for sure." And, again, that seeming expectation, that feeling of inevitability, of both your nomination and your win? That just makes you seem like the awful human being you really are.

A secret source of the Rude Pundit's (yeah, fuck you, Politico, the Rude Pundit's got those, too) said they recently spoke to a bunch of Republican officials who are genuinely embarrassed that they have to support Mitt Romney. One can only imagine the pain of having to grit one's teeth and say that the giant peckerwood next to you should lead the nation. Christ, Romney is such a stiff tool that he makes Bob Dole look like a charmer.

No, this isn't the most sophisticated analysis. But why bother when the conclusion is so obvious? The fact is that most of you reading this, on the left or right, are coming up with another dozen ways that demonstrate Romney is an unbelievable putz. If nothing else, Romney's pricktastic ego and endless supply of money will make the next few months amusing, as he degrades himself and his party further and further with such unsubtle, obvious lies that at some point the word "liar" sticks even more than "dick."